sPrAINed
by TheDarkFlygon
Summary: (PDV II) After a supposed-to-be little joke from her workmate and friend Rémy, Juliette accidentally sprains her right ankle. But, not accepting to be injured, she ignores the pain before it can become too much to handle for her... Currently on hiatus. No need to know PDV already to read this one.
1. Chapter 1

In the Alexandre Ribot School, the clock rang the beginning of the lessons of 1PM. A lot of 10th Graders have started there afternoon.

A young woman, with soft brown long hair and brown eyes, dressed in a black suit, was getting downstairs. Her heels were resounding in the desert corridors covered in green linoleum, where mainly students in Music class and teachers were taking.

This woman is Juliette Jonquille, the only new teacher to the school this year. She is teaching History-Geography in two schools: Alexandre Ribot in St-Omer, but mainly at Vauban, in Aire-sur-la-Lys. The two high schools were a half hour of car from each other.

She was changing of school. In two weeks, she would be in holidays, much to her pleasure. She had deep dark rings under her eyes as she was very tired.

While the young teacher was slowly getting downstairs, a young red-haired man with a strange haircut was following the same track, only way quicker than her. He went closer to her and then yelled: "Hey, how are you?"

This man was Rémy Delapioche, the youngest teacher of the school. He was a French and Latin teacher and 26 years old. He had blondish red hair and turquoise eyes, as well as a beard. He voluntary didn't shave it, since he liked it. He was always wearing a long-sleeved shirt with its three first buttons open.

Rémy went by Juliette's side. The latter had her eyes wide open, jumped when he yelled and so skipped a step. Her right foot turned to right, too much compared to usual.

"Rémy?! Man you scared me so much!" yelled the female teacher, her eyes still wide open.

"Did I? Sorry, wasn't meaning to be that scary!" apologized the Latin teacher, a smile on his face.

"Except this I'm fine…" eventually answered the History one.

"Good! You're going to Vauban right now no?" asked Rémy, in an unusual cheerful mood.

"Yeah… It's far from here, but it's as good as there. Just different" answered his workmate, smiling to him.

They continued for a bit to talk about their respective jobs, students and classes. The French teacher was looking quite carefully to how she was walking, since she was newly limping. The question started to burn his lips. Eventually, when she was about to leave for her other school…

"Hey, Juliette… Your ankle is injured?" he asked, starting to think he was the one who caused this.

"I think I twisted it a bit when you surprised me… It doesn't hurt too much, it will pass" replied the History teacher, smiling at him and then saying him goodbye.

When Juliette got to her car, she sat on the driver's seat and looked at her right ankle. It was hurting too much for being a simple twist, but not enough to be a sprain. She shrugged and started up her car.

At Vauban, an old grey-haired, green-eyed man went to the young History teacher. He looked at her right ankle first, then to her face.

"Hello Juliette! How are you?" he asked.

"Oh, hello Claude! I'm fine, and you? Just tired, as usual" replied his workmate.

Claude Clonsteur was a Sciences teacher at Vauban school. He was fifty-nine years old and so one of the oldest teachers of the school. He was caring a lot about his workmates, especially the younger ones like Juliette, perhaps too much.

"You're limping… Did you injure your ankle?" asked the older teacher to the younger one.

"I twisted it when leaving Ribot… One of my workmates there surprised me in the stairs and I skipped a step, I think it's why I twisted it" she explained.

"What a jerk! It doesn't hurt too much?" reacted the old man.

"Oh, Rémy is nice, he's just clumsy. He didn't want to scare me so much. And no, it doesn't hurt too much if you wonder" replied Juliette, looking again at her ankle.

She was about to add something when she looked at her watch on her right wrist. It was already 13:45 PM, much to her surprise.

"Ah?! Sorry Claude, I have to leave you, it's already going to ring soon!" she said, leaving the teachers' room to go to the C101 room.

There, she had class with the S4 class. They also were 10th Graders, just like the 2D4 ones. They were just a bit more effective and clever than their counterparts at Ribot.

Juliette was finishing her day at 5:30PM this day. During the afternoon, her right ankle became more and more painful, to the point she avoided the more she could to walk or even be up. Every time she could sit, she would sit, mainly on the desk.

After her last lesson, she exited the classroom. The young teacher was limping even worse now, her foot hurting if she was putting a bit too much of a toe on the floor.

Another workmate of her, Liliane, saw her and came nearer. A worried look appeared on her face after a smile with which she said hello. She was a woman around forty-five years old with chestnut shoulder-length hair and light brown eyes.

"Juliette, are you still sure you don't need to go to the hospital for your ankle?" asked worriedly Liliane.

"To be honest, I'm not sure anymore at all… My ankle hurts so badly I think I have to go check if it's not a very bad sprain I have here…" confessed the younger woman to the other one.

"Do you want me to help you go downstairs? You might fall in the stairs with an ankle in such a bad shape" asked the older teacher.

"No, no, I'm not going to make you late to go home, that's ok… Hah?!" started to reply Juliette, before she almost fell.

"You're sure you really don't NEED help?" asked again Liliane, instating on how badly injured her workmate was.

"I don't need help and I'm going to be ok" she answered, before leaving.

Juliette limped all the way long in the corridors. Both students and teachers were looking at her disturbed walk.

Not only was this attention driven on her embarrassing the young teacher, but her ankle was now too painful for her to handle much longer. She felt like it has been shattered and slammed. She was gritting her teeth almost all the time now.

But the worst came with the stairs. To go back to the teachers' room and the parking where her car was waiting for her, she had to go down two stairs. Usually, they weren't very long, but with an injured ankle, it was a whole other story.

First, Juliette grabbed the ramp; just to be sure she could lean on something if her right foot was definitely giving her up. She adventured her left one first, then risking with the other one.

Eventually, the young woman succeeded to get to the parking, taking twice the time she was usually taking to get there.

She opened her car and sat on the driver's seat, closing the door with her left arm. Before she started the vehicle up, she put her right leg on her left one.

Juliette looked again at her right ankle. Liliane was right: it was in a very bad shape. It even inflated a bit since she arrived at Vauban.

Even if she didn't want to, the young teacher knew she had to go to the hospital. Her ankle would break if she was walking on it again. She just had to hope it wasn't going to shatter before she arrived where a doctor could examine it.

Eventually, a black car left the parking, heading to Helfaut.


	2. Chapter 2

The nearer hospital was the Hospital Center of Helfaut. It was a sad fact this town was mostly known for its hospital.

The building was bright white, with a small park for the patients to walk in. There were three main wings: one for the operation and delivery rooms, another for the sick and injured persons and the last one was the maternity one.

The hall was round and very spacious, its walls white and its floor covered in plain grey linoleum like the rest of the hospital. There was the reception desk, where you had to ask for a room or anything other.

The parking was quite big. A lot of cars could be parked there at the same time. Vehicles of both patients hospitalized and visitors had to be stopped there. The employees' ones were in another parking, a private one to avoid stealing.

Juliette parked her own car. She got out as slowly and gently as she could, avoiding to most possible to put her right foot on everything imaginable: seats, the car's floor, the parking's one, even her left foot.

Everybody near of this scene of struggle was watching a simple woman limping all the way to the hospital's reception. Actually, she started to jump on her left foot before she entered the building just to avoid too much pain.

Even with all the efforts she was making, Juliette had a lot of trouble to walk correctly. It looked like she was going to fall every time she was moving any of her two feet. She was limping then jumping on her left foot, unbalanced even more every step done.

When the History teacher finally managed to enter into the white building, she was horrified by the queue waiting to before the reception desk. She started to sweat because of the stress. She looked at her watch: it was already 6:52 PM. How would she have the time to go back to her house? She had lessons at Vauban the Tuesday morning this week.

The queue was mainly composed of visitors coming after work. New fathers or big siblings, wives and husbands, friends, workmates: people she could have been a part of if she wasn't the youngest of two sisters and single.

The other persons waiting for were people here for exams, mostly pregnant women. She was pretty sure she saw her older sister, a chestnut-haired woman with sea blue eyes and a little smaller than Juliette herself.

Daphnée and Michel Jonquille had two daughters in April 1981 and July 1985, respectively Mathilde and Juliette. The first was by far their favorite, their preciosity. Both sisters never actually knew why, even if the younger one had her own theories.

Mathilde was a nurturing and maternal woman. Since 2005, she was married to Charles Coulomb, from who she took his surname. The couple had three children: Jeanne, born in 2007, and the twins Hugo and Théo, both born in 2010.

As Charles was an only child, the Coulomb family only had one aunt. The problem was that this same aunt was too much absent for her family-in-law. The children didn't have any cousin, fact that was annoying their parents. The father started to wonder if she still could be called an aunt because of her absenteeism.

Mathilde tried numerous times to explain to her husband why he shouldn't be so severe with his sister-in-law. His wife had a calm career as a primary school teacher in Eperlecques, where the couple was living. Charles was a French teacher in a middle school near of their town. This school was actually where the aunt first taught.

Mathilde's sister's life was the total opposite. She moved out twice in six years just to reduce the time she was taking to go work. She was now working in two high schools, had six different classes with quite a lot of controls and dissertations to correct each one. This History teacher was constantly tired, contrarily to her brother-in-law.

Juliette tried to not think about this woman. She swore this was her sister, but she didn't even want to hear about her anymore. Their parents neglected her for Mathilde to the point they noticed their younger daughter was gravely sick when she couldn't even get out of her bed anymore, when the illness was on the verge of becoming fatal.

This was the main reason why she didn't want to enter in a hospital anymore. Actually, the History teacher fell ill twice during her 12th Grade year.

The first time, she was confined to bed one week and a half around April. Daphnée and Michel didn't notice before because of Mathilde's twenty-second birthday. Their younger daughter's illness weakened her to the point her fever alone was confining her to bed. She spent one week and a half in there, and spent another week home for convalescence.

The second time, it's her teachers that had to warn her parents about her overwork. Juliette was way too tired and feverish to go to class. One day, the 12th Grader couldn't even get out of bed as she fell right after she got up. While she forced herself to revise as much as she could for the Bac, her body was gravely weakened by hunger and tiredness. In the middle of June, two weeks before this final exam, she had to be hospitalized these two weeks. She got out the day right before and still went the very day, astonishing all her classmates and worrying family and teachers.

Juliette shook her head, trying to forget these painful memories to not hurt her, her ankle was enough. As to this problem, the queue didn't seem to move a lot. People were now waiting behind her as she advances so slowly an episode of Derrick would look quick compared to this waiting.

The young woman started to feel dizzy. It's at this moment she remembered it could be hypoglycemia. Before she could eat something, she fell because her attention given to the sprained right ankle was driven away.

A taller man, who went to visit his wife and newborn, caught her in her fall. His eyes grew wide as he was very surprised by what just happened.

"Hey, Madam, you're fine?!" yelled this man, still astonished.

Juliette put a hand on her forehead and tried to get up, without success since her ankle was too hurtful and her too dizzy to do so.

"I would have liked to say yes, but I think I'm not okay anymore at all…" she replied, her voice weakened by the dizziness.

"You need to sit down?" he asked, starting to worry for this unknown woman.

"I think so yeah… But I need to wait for my ankle…" answered the weak teacher, still trying to get up.

"You're not gonna stay up anymore" he said, before putting her on the nearer seat of them. She couldn't do anything against it because of her bad her actual state was.

Eventually, Juliette managed to get a biscuit from her little bag she had with her. Her hypoglycemia vanished and so did her dizziness more slowly, but it was now the time for her to have her right ankle examined, as a nurse came to her.


	3. Chapter 3

Two men, a dark-skinned bald one and another fair-skinned with brown hair, took the injured woman to the exam rooms.

Juliette looked at the corridors she was carried in. The walls were all white, like the rest of the building and a lot of other hospitals. The doors were here double and grey, with their function written on a plate fixed on the left part, next to the little window at the middle of the top.

When the carriage arrived to a specialized doctor's office, she was kind of relieved. Eventually, she will know and maybe start to suffer less because of this right ankle.

After a few radios, IRM and exams, the doctor invited Juliette to sit on the armchair in front of his desk. This desk was covered in paper sheets, which must have been exams and other medical stuff. There was also a pot where a lot of pens and pencils were waiting to be written with.

The doctor was a tall slender man with dark blond hair and grey eyes. He was about fifty-five years old and had glasses. He was wearing a white scientist coat with a red pen in its chest pocket, a light blue shirt with a darker blue tie and black pants with a brown belt. He had a wedding ring so he was married. His name was David Diangostick.

"Mistress Juliette Jonquille… You never came here before, aren't you?" asked the doctor.

"I never came here, yes…" replied Juliette, her eyes down.

"Well, according to your exams… Your right ankle is badly sprained. I think you will need to have it in plaster" explained Mr. Diangostick.

"Snap… How much time will I be in vacation for this?" asked the History teacher, upset about her sprain.

"Not too much, just two days. What is your job already?" he said.

"I'm a History teacher in high school. Well, I will still be capable to go to this visit with Vauban Friday" answered Juliette.

"Ah, no, sorry, but you cannot go to these activities for a month Madam" replied the doctor.

"What?! I mean, yeah, I have a sprained ankle, but it's not that bad! I can walk at least, it's in a museum, not in a mountain that I'm going to!" almost yelled the young woman, before putting her right hand on her mouth to shut it.

"Please calm down. Your ankle is almost broken and you need to rest your right foot as much as you can. As you are a teacher, you need to sit on the desk's chair, put another for your foot, ok? Also, get up only if this is really necessary" explained calmly the old man.

"Understood. I'm going to have crutches, no?" asked Juliette.

"We are going to give these to you tomorrow after we plastered your ankle. For tonight, you're going to have to stay there" said Mr. Diangostick.

"Fine…" she whispered, desperate because of this sprain.

Her room was the 105 one. This room looked like a lot to almost all the other bedrooms of this section of the hospital: white walls, floor covered with grey linoleum, a bed made in steel with blue blankets, a little bathroom with a tub and a shower, a table and some chairs.

Juliette was in the bed, her right leg blocked. Without her main bag with her assignments to correct, she was pretty much bored. She sneezed and coughed, which reminded her that she had a still her tracheitis, or what was staying from it.

The week before, she had caught a cold the Tuesday. It worsened during the week: the cough appeared the Wednesday, the fever the Thursday. This new sickness weakened her even more than the usual tiredness, despite being the week after two ones of holidays.

The Friday, the illness weakened her so much she couldn't do anything except going to bed when she came back home after work. Some of her students from the 2D4 class, especially Ludovic, had invited her to the annual play of the drama club, but she didn't managed to go, too ill.

She kept the bed during Saturday. Her fever got to its worst this day: 41.3 degrees. Her headaches had the same feeling that having her head slammed by a hammer repeatedly while her cough was permanent, to the point she couldn't talk at all at some moments.

Luckily, when Luc called her on her mobile phone to ask her how she was doing with her correction, she could talk but was still coughing a lot. The fact she answered wrongly to the answer, telling him about her current state, worried him, so he asked her how his workmate was actually doing. She confessed how badly sick she was.

Today, Justine and Ludovic asked her why their teacher wasn't at the play the Friday evening. She had to answer them honestly, so she explained everything to them. They understood but she preferred to apologize and swear she would have come if she hasn't been that sick.

Juliette sneezed and blew her nose, rendered red by the cold she had, with a tissue she had in her bag and that she already used during the day. It was time she did: her nose was almost going to flow.

The young woman looked at the ceiling of the room. It was also bright white, almost confounding with the walls of the same color, except it was paint on the top and not wallpapers. As she was a little sick, she wasn't very hungry.

"Here I am… With an almost broken ankle… I need to call Liliane, but she will be furious at me after what happened this afternoon… Oh, if I knew what would happen, I would have come here right after leaving Ribot…" whispered Juliette, desperate.

The History took her black mobile phone to call her workmate to inform her about her sprain. She chose her number and started her call, anxious and scared of how she would take it. It has been months she was preparing this visit with the S1 class and she would have to deal with a new workmate because she was injured. How horrible was it for the poor woman.

"Hello? Why do you call me? It is about Friday" she asked.

"Yeah… I went to the hospital for my ankle and you were right, it's in a pretty bad shape…" replied her younger workmate.

"Oh, you're such unlucky… Are you hospitalized?" said Liliane.

"Only for tonight, but I'm not going to work tomorrow and Wednesday because of this… Hey, Liliane, I have to tell you something inconvenient…" answered Juliette.

"Tell me, it can't be as bad as you can think I'm sure" replied the older teacher.

"I can't go to the outing Friday because of my ankle… I'm so sorry to bother you days before…" confessed with a sad voice the younger one.

"It can't be true… Please tell me you're joking… No, with this voice, you can't be ironic…" said Liliane.

"I'm such an incompetent… I'm sorry, really sorry for the trouble I'm causing… I shouldn't have asked you that…" almost cried the injured woman.

"Oh, Juliette… You don't have to apologize for this; it's not your fault… Just rest and recover from this, ok? I'm going to fix this" replied the organizer.

"Thanks…" whispered Juliette before the call ended.

One problem was down, much to her relief. She still had the problem of the fact she wasn't absent anymore this Friday, both in Vauban and Ribot.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Juliette woke up at 8:30 AM. She sat up and started to panic before her right leg hurt, causing her to calm down and gently sat up.

As she looked around her, she remembered where she was and why she was there: the 105 room at the Helfaut hospital, because of her right ankle that she sprained the day before. She sighed while getting up.

But before she could even stretch, the young woman fell on the floor, her hair invading her face. She got up leaning on the bed's sheets. Because they were moving quite easily, she slipped on her left knee before succeeding.

There was a pair of brand new crutches leaning on the right side of the bed. Juliette grabbed these crutches and looked at them. It looked like she was analyzing, examining them with her eyes, her eyebrows curved.

Eventually, the History teacher got up while holding the crutches. She didn't fall or slip and went to the yellow door at the left of the room. Behind this door was the bathroom of the 105 room.

She looked at her in the mirror. Her make-up dripped during the night, as her eyeliner was blurry. Her blush was almost all erased, showing even more how hollowed her cheeks were. Her dark rings were a little less deep, as she slept more this night. Yet, they were still quite dark.

After getting dressed again correctly, Juliette went to inform the Doctor Diangostick about her leaving. He warned her about how her situation could get worse and how difficult working would be; she listened carefully, but didn't let her be scared.

When she arrived again to her car, the young woman smiled because she thought of coming home. But her smile disappeared when she remembered it also meant she had to warn Vauban about this surprise absence.

Juliette opened her car and the driver's door. She gently entered in the car, being careful to her plaster on her right ankle. She put the crutches on the floor next to the driver's sit, where she sat. She took her little bag on her shoulder and got her mobile phone out of it.

The History teacher turned it on and called Vauban high school. She had to wait a little time before a secretary replied to her call.

"Hello, I am Juliette Jonquille, History-Geography teacher. I have to signal an absence for today and tomorrow" explained the teacher.

"I am going to write it down and inform the administration. Can you justify this absence?" asked the woman of the school office.

"Yesterday, I sprained my ankle without knowing it and it worsened way more than I thought. Do I have to bring the medical certificate today?" replied Juliette.

"You have to give one to the administration when you will come back here. How bad is your injury, for us to evaluate if this absence is justified?" said the secretary.

"I have a plaster and I can't participate to any school outing whatsoever for the next month" replied the History teacher.

"Thanks for warning us. Goodbye" finished the other woman, before the call ended.

After she put her phone in her bag again, Juliette put the latter on the seat next to her and started up the black car. She left the parking of the hospital, hoping to not come back again until her next radio or exam.

Her house was quite far from Helfaut, being at Wavrans. The road wasn't the easiest, yet it wasn't too dangerous to drive on. Knowing this part of the region almost by heart, she didn't have any hard time coming back home.

Arrived to her house, Juliette took her two bags on her left shoulder, opened the car's door and took her crutches. Out of the car, she had some difficulty to close the door with her crutches. Eventually, she managed to get into her house, the car closed everywhere.

"Finally I'm home… I think I'm going to get a shower and change of clothes" thought the young teacher, relieved to be home.

The shower had been another hard time to do. Juliette had to seat in the shower so she wasn't slipping or falling. Her right ankle was out, the door of the shower opened. When she got out, she was wet almost everywhere except her plaster.

Juliette put on a simple short-length blue shirt and a jean. She went to her office as she was leaving alone, being single. And having a boyfriend wasn't a priority at all for her in the moment.

A pile of tests was waiting to be corrected. They were Commune Exams of the 11th Graders at both Ribot and Vauban. As she saw them, she sighed. A teacher always hates to correct tests and homework, but it was part of his duty.

The long-haired woman put the desk's chair away from it. She took a stool in the office and put it right to where the chair was. The latter was placed where it previously was.

The History teacher sat at her desk, putting her right ankle on the stool carefully and her crutches on the ground next to the chair. She got out of her bag her case and then a red pen. She put the pile of written paper sheets on the piece of furniture and took the one at the top. With her red pen in her right hand, she started to correct.

One or two hours later, Juliette finished her pile of tests. She has been exhausted by this morning, as 1PM already passed. She tidied up all of her correction stuff, bended to take her crutches and got up, walking on them to her living room.

The office and the living room, as well as the kitchen and toilets were on the ground floor. The living room was furnished with only a TV, a black sofa and an armchair of the same color and a buffet where a pot with flowers was the only decoration on it.

Juliette laid down in the sofa, her crutches on its side, and her right ankle on one of the arms. She looked at the ceiling, feeling completely emptied of her energy, despite it was only the second week after the Easter holidays.

Her throat was even more hurting than the day before. It felt like she was constantly thirsty, but drinking water wasn't having any affect whatsoever on this sore throat. She cleared her throat before heavily coughing. This pain made her hunger missing.

A ringtone played in the silent room where only the young woman's breathing sounds could be heard. Juliette barely caught the call, sleepy.

When she looked at who was calling, she saw it was the administration of the Ribot school.


	5. Chapter 5

Juliette blinked, surprised of being called at such an hour. It was only 1:15PM and a school wasn't calling at the beginning of the afternoon normally. She still grabbed her phone and got the call.

"Juliette, you're requested in my office as quickly as possible" said Vauban's vice-principal.

The young teacher's lips were moving, like when she was talking, but nothing got out of her mouth. As she noticed this lack of sound, she understood what was happening. It was something that she didn't want to when she was requested.

She lost her voice.

"Mistress Jonquille, would you like to answer someday? I am not going to wait centuries for an answer" said the vice-principal, starting to be pissed off.

"I'm voiceless Sir I can't speak anymore…" replied Juliette hoarsely, before coughing heavily, while moving her phone away.

"What have you just said?" he asked, having trouble to understand what she just said.

Juliette had to end the call because of how badly she was coughing. After her cough stopped, she grabbed her crutches, got up and walked on them to the entrance of the house. She took her black suit vest she had worn the day before and put it on her shoulders.

The History teacher grabbed her little bag and correctly put her vest on. She entered and sat in her car as carefully as she could while being hurried up by Vauban's vice-principal. Despite her efforts, her right ankle still hurt her a bit, causing her to grit her teeth.

When she arrived at the school, she got on her crutches again and walked into the vice-principal's office. Her workmates all looked at her, looking worried or impressed, or they just didn't care. It was such a pain enough to walk with these sticks, and where she was going was at the second floor.

"Juliette! What happened to you?" said a familiar old man, getting downstairs after a lesson.

"Ah, Claude! My sprained ankle from yesterday… It's worse than I thought, but anyway, that's not going to stop me from working, you know me!" replied his young workmate, with her usual smile on her face.

Strangely, she got her voice back pretty rapidly. It was a real relief to her since she was requested by the vice-principal, who is the second most important man of the school, after the principal himself.

"You don't have lesson until this afternoon, no? Why are you here?" asked Claude, wondering.

"I have to see the vice-principal right now… And I don't have any lesson today or tomorrow since I'm in vacation for this sprain… Oh, I have to see him, see you!" she answered, her eyes a bit more down than before.

"You're such a poor thing…" whispered the Science teacher, looking at his workmate disappearing from his view.

Getting upstairs has been a long chore to do for Juliette. Not only the crutches she was walking on were making her slow, but these sticks were perturbing her balance that was already damaged by the fact she only had shoes with heels to go at Vauban, where a bit of formality was required, which wasn't at Ribot. It was heels or slippers.

Eventually, she arrived at the second floor and went to the vice-principal's secretary office. Anxious and sorry for her being so much late, the young teacher knocked to the door and entered. There, the secretary made her wait for a short amount of time so the person with the man who requested her could finish his appointment with a student's parents.

"Oh, you were injured?! We shouldn't have requested you to come here…" said the secretary, looking sorry.

"That's fine if it's important… I'm sorry if I look untidy, I had to hurry and I was exhausted with what happened to me yesterday…" replied the teacher, before the vice-principal appeared in the room.

"Hello, Juliette. Here you are. Wait a minute… It's you the teacher that had a sprained ankle and so couldn't go to the outing with the S1 class?" reacted the black-haired man.

"Hello Sir. Yes, it's me…" she replied, grabbing her crutches she had put on the floor when she sat up.

As she got up, he showed her and opened the door of his office. While he looked at her coming to the door, he asked her:

"Do you need a stool for your foot?"

"I would like to have one yes, but can I really request you to put one for me, if I'm already late?" responded Juliette.

"That's not a question of late or anything; you have a plaster and crutches. I am going to get you one" decided the vice-principal, as he went into his office to get a stool.

Vauban's vice-principal was a rather tall man, around the forty-five years. He got very short black hair, almost without reflects, and dark brown eyes that looked tired. He also had dark rings under these eyes. He was wearing a black suit with its vest closed, a white short with all its buttons closed and a red tie. His shoes were pitch black and well waxed.

The History teacher followed him in the office. The room was smaller than she originally thought. Its walls were wallpapered in soft brown with wooden borders above the ceiling and the floor, which was covered in wood. When you were walking on this parquet, it was creaking loudly under your footsteps.

The vice-principal sat on the chair behind the desk. He invited the teacher to sit on the chair at the other side of the desk, a stool near of it. She did what she was supposed to do as she sat, facing him. The black-haired man put his glasses on as she was putting her right ankle on the stool and her crutches on the floor next to where she was sitting.

"Mistress Jonquille… We weren't supposed to call you today because of your vacation for work accident, but we have a problem that is urgent to settle" said the vice-principal in a serious tone.

"What is this problem?" asked the young woman.

"It's about your work accident. You know we can't let you go to outings, and this is a problem we already settled, but we also can't let you teach in your usual way to do" explained the black-haired man.

"It's because of how I seat on my desk, aren't it?" she questioned.

"Not only this, but because you need to stay seated, your ankle on a stool or a chair, all the hour long. You are not going to go far if you cannot even get up, as you cannot write on the board if you walk on crutches" answered the vice-principal.

"I… I see… But I can't take a two months-long vacation a month before the Bac…" replied Juliette.

"It's what makes the problem difficult. We will warn the students and ask them to be calm and quiet during your lessons. We will punish the ones who will not obey to this" he detailed, his eyes coldly looking into hers.

"I understand your methods and agree, but don't treat them too harshly. It's my fault at first if my ankle is sprained" requested the History teacher, thinking about her students before herself.

"You're much too sweet with these students. Our school is still nurturing them compared to others, but you look like a mother here" said the middle-aged man, strangely changing of speech.

"I'm not nurturing them, I just don't want them to be punished when it's my entire fault!" violently replied Juliette.

"Mistress, I didn't ask you to upset, understood? Well, this problem is settled, you can go out now" calmly said the vice-principal, despite the fact it was clear he was upset by how she reacted.

"Fine. Have a great day, goodbye" she answered.

The long-haired woman grabbed her crutches and gently got up, looking carefully to her plastered ankle. As she was getting out of the room, the noise caused by her walk was resounding loudly in the room because of the creaking parquet.

"Ah, Mathilde, how can you be even kinder with your own pupils…?" whispered Juliette, as she went downstairs to come back home.


	6. Chapter 6

When Juliette came back home, she remembered she had to insert marks on Pronote, the program all French schools were using to control the grades of the students, from middle school to college.

The History teacher went into her office, came to her desk and turned on her laptop. The computer played a short music while its owner placed her stool to put her ankle on. When she did, she sat on the chair like she did to correct tests connected onto her PC.

After she did what she had to do on both Ribot and Vauban Pronote, the long-haired woman checked her e-mail boxes. On the one she had at Vauban, there was no new message whatsoever from her workmates, so she disconnected from it fairly quickly.

When the History teacher connected on her Ribot e-mail box, she was astonished that she got mails there. She never got a lot since Luc's one for the trip to Scotland, back in January. She looked at who had sent them. The sender was called "LHOTAR Justine" by Outlook.

"Justine?! What does she need to ask me this time? If her question from yesterday wasn't embarrassing enough…" she whispered.

The sender of the mail was a young 10th Grader from the 2D4 class from Ribot. She was a dark blond-haired girl with blue eyes. She was taller than Juliette despite wearing baskets while the latter was wearing shoes with quite high heels. Justine was a good student, especially in History-Geography, but was quite strange and unusual. Her teacher didn't know what to think exactly of her, but she liked talking to her and she was serious, so it was fine.

The first mail was sent the Friday before, at around 4:20PM. It was about the hours of the theatre play of the drama club of the school she was too sick to go to. It was a very short paragraph explaining why this mail was sent and the hours.

The second mail was way longer. It had three paragraphs with each long of around seven lines. This one was dealing with different subjects, but mainly the absence of her History teacher to the play and why they were sad about this. The disappointment of Justine, but also the one of her friend Ludovic could be felt. Still, it was a bit funny at some moments because of how she had written the mail. Since it has been sent at 11:30PM, she must have been tired and so didn't write as well as she wanted to do.

Juliette felt like she had to reply to this mail, despite having explained her everything the day before after her lesson with the 2D4 class. It was late to send an answer to this mail, yes, but it felt like a duty to her.

Since she said all that she had to already, the young woman only wrote a short mail summarizing what she explained the Monday before. Yet, this reply mail took her fifteen minutes to write it, because she didn't know what to say.

After having answered to this mail, she turned off the computer that was heating even more the already hot room. The sun was shining outside, the clouds were absent of the blue sky and the thermometer was showing elevated temperatures.

Suddenly, when she was about to grab her crutches to go to the kitchen just to eat something, a violent wave of heat took Juliette. While she was putting her hand on her forehead trying to find out if her fever was back from her horrible weekend, her head started to be dizzy, even worse than when she was having her hypoglycemia crises.

Only a few minutes after, this strange event stopped. The brown-haired woman gasped before sighing, relieved it has vanished away. Still, she gently took her crutches and calmly got up. Walking on them, she went into her bedroom and took off her vest she forgot to take off after she came back home, probably because she first thought about Pronote. After having got upstairs slowly, she arrived at the first floor.

The bedroom had its wall painted in soft brown; almost matching the house's only resident's hair color. The floor was covered with light wood and had a small carpet next to the bed. The latter was a single one, with a red blanket and made out of wood. On it there was her dark grey pajama, still lying there from Monday morning.

Juliette sat on her bed and put her crutches on the floor next to it. She then lied down on bed, careful to her right ankle. Her arms were apart from the rest of her body, her head pointing to the ceiling, her eyes empty of any spark.

Before she could notice it, she fell under the tiredness she was the victim of as sleep slowly took over her.

A chestnut-haired woman with blue eyes got out of a car and went to the house's entrance door. She was wearing a denim jacket over a light blue short with only a button open and pants made in the same fabric. Her black shoes had heels about five centimeters high. On her hears were drop-shaped pendants made of gold with a light pink stone in the middle of each of them. Her hair was behind her back, free.

This woman was Mathilde Coulomb, an elementary school teacher. She was rarely coming there, as she was living in Eperlecques, quite far from Wavrans that was a village near to the biggest hill of the department Pas-de-Calais. She was thirty-three years old and was married, since she had a wedding ring on her right hand's ring finger.

Mathilde pushed the button next to the entrance door of the house. This door was made in white plastic and had a small blurry window at the middle top. A little ringtone resounded in the house, but nothing other was to be heard. Not even a footstep answered. The woman got out a key and put into the lock, then opened the door.

The house was sunk in the silence. Mathilde's footsteps were the only noise that could be heard. As she was exploring the ground floor, she came near of a tall cabinet. Suddenly, she heard a strange noise of something falling coming from above her head.

A lamp fell from this cabinet because its scale was disturbed when the woman accidentally hit into the tall piece of furniture. She barely managed to catch the lamp before it could hit the ground or her head. She sighed of relief and put correctly this object on its initial place.

Mathilde got upstairs slowly, her footsteps as quiet as she could. She wasn't silent because of how loud was the creaking of the wood the stairs were made of. The first floor had three doors: one to her left, another to her right and the third one was at the middle, facing her.

The elementary school teacher exactly knew where she had to go. She went to the middle door and knocked at it, still quiet. Mathilde put her hear against the door, but got no answer. Eventually, she decided to enter the room, as she slowly opened the door.

The room was the only bedroom of the house. Mathilde entered into the brown room, looking at her surroundings. There was a chest of drawers against the left wall while the bed was against the right one.

Suddenly, the chestnut-haired woman's eyes were focused on this bed where was lying an asleep Juliette, having a harsh breathing. When Mathilde wanted to get closer to the injured woman, she fell on something, injuring a bit her knee. After she got up again, the elementary school teacher looked at what made her fall.

It was crutches.

Not understanding why crutches were put there, she looked at Juliette, more especially to her legs. She understood when she saw that her sister had her right ankle plastered. The older sister took a chair near in the room and sat on it, being careful to her knee, since she didn't want to have a plaster too.

Mathilde put her hand on Juliette's forehead, knowing she had at least a cold, since she had her nose red. The older sister compared her own forehead's heat to the heat of the injured one's. It was clear the younger was feverish. The chestnut-haired woman got up and went into the bathroom to get a thermometer to know exactly how elevated the fever was.

As her footsteps' noise got further of the bedroom, Juliette's eyes opened slowly, her vision quite blurry and her hearing not effective. She tried to get up, but a sudden headache forced the History teacher to stay where and how she was.


	7. Chapter 7

Mathilde soon got back to the bedroom with a frontal thermometer in her right hand. She quietly entered into the brown room, careful to the noise she was making, thinking that her sister needed sleep and so needed silence to rest.

With her blurry vision, Juliette couldn't distinguish clearly what was happening while a headache was nailing her to bed. When she managed to distinguish that a person holding a black object was entering the room, she didn't know what to do. Her eyes were forming tears while she felt like a hammer was slamming her head.

The elementary school teacher went to the bed and put the thermometer on the History one's forehead. Mathilde then took it off and looked at it. Her sister tried to focus on what the chestnut-haired woman was doing, concentrating both her vision and her hearing. Both were still blurry and unclear, what could lead her to a total confusion.

"39.2… Sheesh Juliette, you're in good health or you're completely sick…" whispered Mathilde, looking at her sister.

The latter barely understood what has just been said. At least, she understood how elevated her fever was. Still, she felt like her arms and legs were numb, not responding because of how tired she was. Her mind was the only thing still woken up in her whole body, and it was wondering: how could her fever rise so much when she didn't have any the very morning?

"I was going to announce you I was pregnant, but I think it will be another time. Just rest, ok? I know you can hear me Juliette, you can't mistake your sister" said the older sister, her blue eyes looking good willing to the sick woman.

"Again… You're always saying me the same things over and over again…" murmured Juliette with a very weak voice.

"But it's for your good! You're always in overwork when I see you! You never come to our family reunions and when you do, you're sick or on the verge of burn-out! I have enough of seeing you like this, Juliette! You're still a virgin despite soon celebrating your thirtieth birthday! You're a shame to our family, like a punishment!" yelled Mathilde, not controlling herself anymore.

"If I am the family's shame… Why do you still want to tell me you're expanding your own family again…?" asked the weakened teacher, her eyes suddenly reflecting a sort of anger.

"Because if I don't I feel bad! I hate to love you. You did nothing for me except bringing problems to our parents and me! You've failed your life and we have to bear this until you or we DIE! Yes, you're a lovable person, but before you eventually find love, you will still be away from us. You can't understand how family is important for us since you don't have your own. For now, you're just someone far from the rest" responded her older sister.

"You're cruel… Not only you… But 'your' parents too… I don't want any child and you don't accept that…" started to reply Juliette.

But before she could even finish her sentence, she took her head in her almost numb hands, murmuring such words as "ow", expressing the pain her head was making to her. Her eyes closed and couldn't be open again as she felt dizzier and dizzier over time. Eventually, she fainted shortly after, under the eyes of her angry sister.

"Juliette, are you ok?!" asked Mathilde, now afraid and worried for the younger teacher. Panicked, she rushed to the bathroom to get something. Never her sister did this, at least in front of her. Her anger vanished away, again: she couldn't hold a grudge against her sibling.

She got back to the bedroom with a wet washcloth and a bucket of cold water. The chesnut-haired woman put the bucket on the floor next to the bed and the washcloth on Juliette's head, wet of sweat caused by her fever.

After she did so, Mathilde got up again from the chair and went downstairs. She took a water bottle that she put in the fridge to get fresh water. Then, she came back upstairs to put the water bottle on the little table that was next to the bed. Before leaving again the bedroom, the older sister checked the heartbeats of the younger one. They were a bit weaker than normally, but nothing dangerous. It must have been because she was asleep.

Mathilde then left without a sound, as silent as a ghost. She closed the bedroom and entrance doors behind her, sinking the entire house in a dead silence again, like right before she came there, just to announce to her sister something.

A few hours later, Juliette woke up, her head finally less painful. She sat up in her bed. The first memory that got back to her head was Mathilde's cold speech. Why was she there? Why had she said such cruel things? Her head started to pound again and so she stopped thinking about it.

The History teacher felt water flowing on her face, coming from her forehead. When she put her right hand that was less numb than before there, she discovered a wet washcloth has been put on her forehead, but by whom? It must have been Mathilde, but why? These questions made Juliette's head hurt more again, and so she stopped thinking about this.

Soon, the young woman also discovered that a bucket filled with cold water was by her bed. She could dive her left hand in it because of how close it was. She used this technique the Saturday before, when a very high fever nailed her to the bed the whole day. She had put a bucket filled of water by the piece of furniture right before falling on it because of the exhaustion and of sickness when she came back from Vauban Friday evening.

Her ankle was less hurting, at least. Juliette wondered why, but she found two different explanations: it was because her legs felt almost numb, or because her head was pounding to the point her sprain was nothing compared to this pain. She didn't want to think too much with her headache.

Her golden watch was indicating an hour around 8PM. When the sick woman looked at it, her eyes grew wide: how could have she slept so long?! She still had tests to correct but her head was too painful. But the ache that was preventing her from working was doing the same with sleeping. What would she do before it could calm down?

When she was about to just wait for this pain to lower, Juliette noticed there was a box of aspirin next to a bottle of water and a glass. A little smile could be seen on her face. Even with a very hurtful migraine, the History teacher managed to flow a glass of water and take an aspirin.

Finally, released from an almost unbearable pain, the sick woman could sleep. And she did, still anxious about her late. She had to give them back for the next Monday, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

The Wednesday passed slowly, Juliette having corrected tests all the day. As usual, it was a boring chore to do, but it was necessary to do it as a teacher. After she finished her pile of paper sheets, she sighed of relief.

The following morning, Juliette woke up thinking about only one thing: how to fix the problem with her absence now canceled at Ribot? Vauban was aware of this, but she forgot to warn the other school the day before so she could focus on correcting her students' tests.

When the History teacher came into the teachers' room to see if she had any sort of note in her locker, all of the workmates that haven't see her the previous Tuesday were all astonished, their eyes fixed on her crutches. The young woman's brown eyes were reflecting a kind of confusion, while the question "why are they looking at me like this?" resounded in her head, left unanswered.

Suddenly, Claude entered the room and went to his much younger workmate, his eyes reflecting an unhidden surprise to see her there:

"Juliette?! What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to… To rest at home?" babbled the Biology teacher, powerless against his astonish.

"Hey, Claude! I have a job to do you know, and it's not a sprained ankle that's going to prevent me from making class!" almost laughed the History one, a bright smile on her face.

"This is not supposed to be funny young lady" darkened the voice of her Science workmate, without anything that could announce it.

"Erh… Are you ok Claude? You seem weird… Did I say something wrong?" attempted to reply Juliette, confused and starting to be scared.

"Yes, you always say wrong things! Can't you just think before you open your freaking mouth?" reacted violently the old man, his eyes reflecting a growing anger.

The History teacher was trying her best to hide how threaten she was. Never Claude was that violent or even this cold-hearted. Even stranger, he was usually a very warm and caring person, perhaps too much for her.

"What… What is your fucking problem?!" yelled Juliette, her voice vibrating with a kind of anger under which she was hiding how scared she was by a change that violent.

"Check your language, impolite! You're gross to hear despite being pretty physically" continued the threatening man, his deep anger clearly hearable.

Strangely, nobody was doing anything to help the menaced woman. It already rang the beginning of the day and she had a lesson with her 11th Graders of Vauban, the 1STMG1 class. But for now, she had to set her free from this grip.

"And what are you going to do to me for my punition?" asked Juliette, trying to be more confident and setting free from her fear.

"You should have guessed, but you are far from being clever. Remember, when I said you were 'decently pretty'?" replied Claude, a slight grin starting to show on his face.

"Oh so you're going to rape me? I don't what happened with you, psycho, but you're not gonna do it!" she said.

Originally, the History teacher planned to drop between her workmate's legs, but she remembered she had crutches and mostly a very sprained ankle to deal with. Instead, she lifted her right crutch, a little smile on her face.

Without any warning, Juliette slammed her crutch into Claude's face, who fell on the floor because of how violent was the strike. The young woman then fled away as quickly as she could walk with her crutches that, for once, were useful.

During the morning, the woman was stressed out because of what happened in the teachers' room. At the break of 10AM, she went directly to the classroom where she was teaching next. One objective: avoiding Claude at any cost. She managed to do it.

This day, she didn't eat at the school's cantina, just so she wasn't risking to cross this strange man's path. The problem was that she knew she was hypoglycemic and had to eat regularly if she didn't want to faint. She had to choose between eating this noon or at the break of 4PM. By default, she chose the break because it has been the point where she had to for now fourteen years, since the first hypoglycemia crisis she did.

When arriving to Ribot, she started to feel dizzy. Juliette knew the reason of this dizziness: hypoglycemia. Still, she ignored it and went upstairs, slower than usual because of her crutches and this very dizziness.

As she got to the second floor, she went to the main corridor, where the 208 room was awaiting for her. But, before she could pass the door to the floor's landing, where students were taking stuff from red or yellow lockers, she crossed two familiar heads.

Ludovic and Justine from the 2D4 class, the ones that wanted her to come to the play the previous Friday.

As she saw her, Justine had her eyes growing wide while Ludovic's ones were looking at inside of the polyvalent room. Her eyes were staring at her teacher, more specifically her right ankle, plastered and showing under her pants.

"Hey, Ludo… Am… Am I dreamin' or…" said Justine, looking quite shocked by what she was seeing.

"What?" started her friend, before having his eyes growing the same way as the girl's. "It's Mrs. Jonquille?! Why is she…?"

The two 10th Graders were sitting on a little wall made of bricks, not taller than one meter high. The wall was in the angle formed by the door leading to the landing and the polyvalent room's entrance.

Juliette stopped to say welcome to her two students. The two smiled but their astonish was obvious. Still, she didn't notice it, willing to flee to the 208 room so she could sit at the desk and not fall under the dizziness or the hypoglycemia.

The three discussed for a bit of the new representation of the play the following Thursday. But, when she was about to leave them, the teacher placed her crutches in the wrong way and fell on the floor, her ankle slammed to the ground in her fall.

Both Justine and Ludovic went to her, getting off of their sitting. He took the crutches as she went directly to their teacher. Both then asked her if she was ok, just to get a weak positive answer they didn't believe at all.

But, when she tried to get up, Juliette understood what was nailing her to the floor, only capable to sit up, even if she leaned on the little brick wall where her two pupils were sitting on right before.

Her hypoglycemia definitely got the best out of her.


End file.
